A Homily for the Fourth of July weekend

This homily is to be/was given at Grain of Wheat Community, a neighbourhood
fellowship in the Wolsely area of Winnipeg, Manitoba, Canada. The theme for
the summer series is, Things I have learned or things the Lord has
taught me.

It has been modified for print distribution on the
Internet. It bears my copyright, and if
distributed in print, should have all hyper-references printed out in full.
Permission is granted to distribute according to the terms above.

Please be aware that the core
idea embedded within comes from Campus Crusade for Christ, and along with
some features of theme development,
may be also subject to their copyright.

This is the weekend of the Fourth of July, a day when our neighbours
to the south celebrate the freedom that they as a nation have won.

For many of us, freedom is an important concept. And in this series on
"Things I have learned or that the Lord has showed me," the thought I
want to share is about the freedom to love and to serve. It is a unique
idea that has had a big impact in my life since I first heard it. Not
only does it cover what has to change, but also how we can go about making
that change.

I currently live in the Wolsley area of Winnipeg. Quite often I take the bus
along Westminster when I go to work. It's quite a bit
different from riding the bus along Portage. It's just a little less
rushed, and hardly ever crowded. Usually, there's a nice handful of people
on the bus.

This one day, there were about seven or eight of us on the bus, when a
young couple got on. What amazed me was that she had the sweetest voice,
and the lovliest smile, and here she was, complaining in her sweet voice to
her partner,how they kept running into this certain woman, and she couldn't
stand her.

I thought, "How appropriate. This will make a valuable introduction to
my topic."

You see, the lesson I learned very early in my Christian walk that there
were people I just couldn't love in my own strength. You know, I felt guilty.
I knew I should love everyone. I thought that it was silly not to love
everyone. And I am by nature pretty easy-going.

But nothing could change the fact that there were people that I found
difficult to love. I was repulsed by them. I just didn't have that `loving
feeling' for them.

As I am working on this message, I realize that there are new people whom
I need to apply this to in my own life. There are international leaders who
I waste my life detesting.

You see, God knows it is for our own benefit that we learn to love others.
If we spend our time being angry at those things that we cannot change, we
only hurt ourselves.

It was from attending a Campus Crusade for Christ Lay Institute for
Evangelism, that I learned about what I want to share with you this
morning.

One of their seminars was on how to love by faith. So with your
forbearance, I will share with you what I learned then, and what I have
since learned. It is like a wedding: some things old, some things new, and
some things borrowed.

Love comes in our lives at new birth

When Jesus comes into our lives, a great change comes along
with him. The Scripture says that God is love. So when we get
him, we get access to his love. But his love does not overtake
all areas of our lives right away. That is because there
are areas we all hold back.

it is just a seed; it grows

Jesus uses the illustration of the mustard seed to represent
how the kingdom grows. And of course this applies to how he grows in our
lives individually as well as to the growth in the number of Christians
in the world.

When we invite Christ into our hearts, he initially makes a big change.
But after this he brings to our attention areas of our life that we have
yet to yield to him.

Our Christian life is in this like the mustard seed. As we water our faith,
it grows. And so it is with this area of love.

What do we mean by love

First, lets define what we mean by love. The English word
love would represent three different things to the ancient Greeks:

Eros:

this is the erotic, or sexual love, that can be the
initial bond between a man and a woman. Though we think of Erotic Love
in negative terms, it is not bad in its place. It is indeed the
physical attraction that sparks the romantic interest
between people.

I understand that the word Eros does not appear in the
Bible. And Erotic Love is not the love I am talking about,
so let us go on and talk about a much stronger love.

Phileo:

this is brotherly love. The Liberty Bell resides in
the city of Philadelphia, the city of brotherly love!

Brotherly love is a strong bond that builds community. And I
am learning much about it. It is the love that binds people
together in friendship. That is where this message starts.

Agapeo, or Agape love,

is the love that God has for mankind.
Jesus talked about it after His resurrection, when he asked
Peter if Peter loved Him. The dialogue went something
like this:

You see, Jesus takes us where we are, and uses that to glorify himself.

Emotional beings and sour dreams

We are emotional beings, whether we like it or not. Whether
we want to admit it or not. When we get married, we have a dream. When the
dream goes sour, it dies. It takes divine intervention to bring it back to
life.

26 years of marriage. For my wife, the dream died two or three times.
But a miracle from God brought it back. As she says, the Holy Spirit was
standing by with a defibrilator to revive the failing heart, and breathe
new life into it.

She felt we were living in the same house, but emotionally divorced. I
remember one time, when I actually sensed it was serious, having a long
walk and putting it into God's hands.

There were several things that helped:

reneweing our vows

going for counselling

investing a lot of prayer

Purposeful Love

But what I feel most important is a special kind of purposeful, agape love.
Love can be an emotional thing. But the highest kind of love is the result
of a decision.

Jesus says that we will be known by our love for one another as
Christians.

There are those whom it is easy to love.

Then there are those who have different ideas from mine. I can reason
that God will set them straight. So I can put up with them.

But of course Jesus says to love your enemies. "Sure, I guess I can
love them, just as long as they are not next door! But what about those
ones at work who just rankle me? What about that child of mine that always
turns up the music so loud, and just won't listen? What about that spouse
who doesn't care for me anymore, where the spark has died? Come on, you
really don't expect me to love that one, do you?

"How am I supposed to do good to the one who hurt me? How can I love
the one who doesn't care! I've lost all feeling for them, you know."

There's the rub. Jesus didn't say to feel all gushy about them. Compassion
is not about emotions. Compassion is about a step of faith.

Loving by faith

Here is the climax of the whole message. Loving by faith is
confessing to God that we cannot love a person, asking Him to love that
person through us, and then leaving the results to Him.

Can I repeat that for you?

(here it is again)

Compassion is about a desperate heart crying out to God and saying, "That
person drives me up the wall! I can't love them. I've given up trying. But
Lord, I'm willing to let your love dwell in me. I don't know how you will
do it, but do it through me."

Campus Crusade Staffer

I remember a Campus Crusade staffer sharing this message. They
told of a person they had stay in their house who just seemed to be one
problem after another. The fellow said he prayed, but he didn't feel any
different afterward.

Yet when the person moved out, their mail kept coming to his home.

When asked later why they kept having their mail sent there, they said,
"Because I felt loved here."

God had taken that staffer's prayer, and without them noticing any change,
had made it obvious to the other person.

Emotions won't necessarily follow

There is no guarantee that when you ask God to love someone
through you, that you are going to feel any different. But when you
take something to Jesus and leave it at his feet, miracles can and do
happen. I don't know if it is enough to save your marriage, to heal
your relationship with your kids, or to win that lost person to Christ.
I don't know if it will change anything at work. But I do know that when
you put it in God's hands as a grain of mustard seed, there is no telling
what can happen. God works things out for our best, because that it to his
own glory also.

If we never try, we won't know, will we. But if we will
take the step of confessing our own lack, then God can use
that and build on it.

Set them - and us - free

He can take that step to work forgiveness in our hearts.
Merlin Carothers points out that, as we forgive, we set the other person
free - and we set ourselves free too. Free from darkness, free from
bondage, free to have God speak to them and to us.

A place of prayer

There is a place of prayer near you. If you have a need to get started
with God on this, if God is speaking to you, you need to say, "I'm
willing, Lord." Don't put off dealing with it. In the quiet of your
home, office or study hall, or on your way home from the public place
where you have 'net access, let the Lord assure you that he can help you.
As you say, "Lord, I can't do it by myself; I need
your help," God will hear you and meet your need.